Yikes, wanna see some cool crabs?

coco-crab

blue phase coco-crab

big coco-crab


These are coconut crabs. They live in the south pacific and indian ocean island chains and eat mainly fruits and other organics like leaves and small animals. They can get a limb span of 3 foot plus! They are actually closely related to hermit crabs. The young ones even use small shells and the like for cover during their younger, softer, years. Once the body has hardened in their adult stage, they just tuck their bellies under their shell to protect them from predators and waterloss. They can live 30-60 years and are strong enough to crack open coconuts to get at the nutricious juices and meat inside.

Perhaps the neatest thing about these guys is that young coconut crabs have been seen using small, hollowed out coconuts as a shell for their backs. Much like the youngster in this pic: juvie coco-crab

and this one: juvie coco-crab 2


Heh, I just wanted to share these fascinating guys with you.

They are pretty cool! I saw some articles about them when I was looking up info on my Hermit Crabs.I remember them saying some of the "off the wall" shells that they use! Pretty smart if you ask me!

oh my goshhhhhhhhhhh. i want some, theyre totally cool looking, loving the juvie pics. its awesome, my goooooooooddddness!11

adorable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I used to have fiddler crabs...sort of look like a humongous relative of them

Whoa, the blue is awesome!

Thanks for sharing Toothy!

Those are cool, but they actually kind of scare me. Heh. I really like the coloring on the blue one though. But he still scares me.

Yeah, if any of you have ever read Stephen Kings "gunslinger series" (specifically, The Drawing of the Three), you might recognize these guys! They remind me of the lobster things that chop Rolands fingers and toes off...........

<shrieks> Why would you say such a thing? I am so never looking at a crab again! <shuffles off sobbing hysterically>

Oh, so I take some of you remember the sounds those things made, huh?


"did-a-check?.... did-a-chock?..... did-a-check"


Gawd, everytime I look at lobsters or crabs and the like, I remember Roland waking up on the beach............

I remember a kid in my kindergarden class took his pet coconut crab to "pet day". I don't know how he got such a pet, but that was one fascinating little beasty! The kid thought it was a hermit crab lol It was tame like a dog, but knowing now that those guys open coconuts (having tried unsuccessfully to do that myself with a rock) I'm not sure I'd want to be quite as cuddly with those things as that kid was

Thanks for posting those! I especially loved the blue one. I didnt know they had such color variation. I have actually been doing some reading on those guys and in fact they have learned a lot about land hermit crabs by studying the coconut crabs. Land hermits are more closely related to them than marine hermits, interestingly enough. And while there are about 10 species of land hermits there is only one species of the coconut crabs.

I would love to be able to travel someday and see them in the wild. They must be fascinating creatures to see!